For all companies, sales are the lifeline and the revenue generator that drives growth. During a down economy or in a slow period of seasonality, companies look to their sales force and examine if they are capitalizing on all potential opportunity. Often in these times of desperation, a company will look to an outside resource to help them. Sales consulting can be an effective way to work with your existing sales force and find new approaches, invest in training and sales techniques or work with marketing to determine better avenues to promote a product or service.
Another route that more companies are using is sales forces outsourcing. In this approach, a professional company, that can often have some sales consulting on the front end of an engagement, will execute a sales strategy and leverage their core strengths. Many sales force outsourcing companies can add a channel to existing sales or target certain markets to squeeze every drop of opportunity out of your product or service.
These engagements can be anything from sales lead generation, telesales outsourcing, outsourced inside sales or sales support to face to face sales team implementation. When considering a direction, good companies look to their top performs and ask what they are doing different and how they can use that experience and knowledge to choose the right partner channel. Often, the sales force outsourcing company will work in conjunction with your existing sales team. They can target a smaller sized customer segment, leverage an efficient telesales outsourcing strategy and free up your top producers to chase the larger enterprise level sales.
In any situation, a company must evaluate how the integration will impact their existing sales. Cannibalizing existing sales with a sales force outsourcing company may be more efficient, but is not part of a sound strategy. Engaging with an outsourced inside sales provider, you should find new markets, new approaches or new revenue sources that is underserved so that your overall sales revenue level increase. This is the mark of a solid sales force outsourcing partnership.
